The murder of a Mexican Tikotoker Valeria Márquez raises questions

When a 23-year-old Mexican influencer was shot on Tiktok during the live streaming, rumors began to linger. Was it a cartel stroke? Or another tragic example of violence against women?

On Tuesday, Valeria Marquez was shot in Blossom The Beauty Lounge, a beauty salon of the victim in Zapopan, a city in the central state of Jalisco.

The public prosecutor said it examined the crime as a female, which means that the crime is motivated by the fact that the victim was a woman.

The President of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, said an investigation was underway: “We are working on catching the responsible persons and finding out why this was done.”

But the fact that the crime took place in Jalisco, the state in which the dreaded cartel Jalalco Nueva Generación (CJNG) was created, led to speculation of some that the cartel could somehow be involved.

Ms. Marquez was a Mexican model that made a name for herself in 2021 after, according to Mexican media reports, she won Miss Rostro's Beauty.

Shortly afterwards she started creating content on social media. She would share make -up tips and personal care routines, talk about fashion and show her trips.

Photos of her on private jets and yachts can be seen on her Instagram account, which had more than 223,000 supporters at the time of her death.

Ms. Marquez also had another 100,000 followers on Tiktok.

Although it is unclear what happened, Ms. Marquez said during her last livestream, she was waiting for a courier she knew about giving a gift.

She added that she was a bit worried because her friend couldn't see the courier's face when he arrived.

“Why didn't he just hand it over (the gift)? Did you want to pick me up (kidnap me) or what?” She wondered her followers loudly.

When Ms. Marquez held a pink -filled animal, he looked away from the camera and immediately reached her chest and stomach before she broke into her chair.

Another woman then took the phone and ended the live stream.

The police arrived at the scene at around 6:30 p.m. local time (12:30 p.m. GMT) and, according to the prosecutor, confirmed Ms. Marquez's death.

The authorities say that at least two men arrived in the salon on motorcycles and one of them asked the victim whether they were Valeria. When she answered “yes”, he pulled out a gun and shot her at least twice before he fled.

The investigators say that they check CCTV film material and follow the social media accounts of MS Marquez to point out who the attackers could be.

But the location of the salon in the rich area of ​​Zapopan in Guadalajara has raised questions about the motive for crime. While the presence of private security and the tidies of its streets give the impression that Zapopan is a safe area, it is actually one of the most violent communities in Jalisco. In fact, shootings regularly appear in the luxurious shopping centers in the area.

According to the US Ministry of Justice, more than half of real estate and commercial development in the region is connected to the laundry of the money of drug trade.

Jalalco occupies sixth place among the 32 states of Mexico, including in Mexico city, in relation to murders, and 906 murders are registered after the term of office of President Claudia Sheinbaum in October 2024, according to the data consulting company Tresearch.

It is also one of the Mexican countries that are most affected by the cartels. It was 50 kilometers from Zapopan that a cartel training center was found in March, and 15,000 people have disappeared here since 2018.

On the same day on which Márquez was killed, according to the newspaper, a former congress member named Luis Armando Córdoba Díaz was murdered only two kilometers away Reforma.

According to the state of Jalisco, 90% of the crimes are never reported or examined. The public prosecutor has long been accused of having connections to cartels that it denies.

The public prosecutor said that so far they have no reason to suspect that Ms. Marquez 'murder was ordered or carried out by one of the organized criminal groups operated in the region.

Instead, the office suggested that the murderer might be motivated to kill her because of her gender.

The Mexican media had previously published news in which Ms. Marquez blamed her ex-partner when something happened to her.

The mayor of Zapopan Juan José Frangie said that his office had no records that Ms. Marquez asked for help from the authorities due to threats against them and added AFP according to the news agency.

“In response to claims that indicate alleged perpetrators of the Femicide in Zapopan, we make it clear that there are no direct allegations against a person in the investigation file,” said Jalalco's public prosecutor in a statement.

“All statements and information, including videos and social media contributions, are analyzed. The examination is carried out as part of the female protocol with a gender -specific perspective, without revival and according to the principles of legality, impartiality and respect for human rights,” she added.

Gender -specific violence is a serious problem in Mexico, a country that takes fourth place in Latin America and in the Caribbean for Femicide, behind Paraguay, Uruguay and Bolivia.

According to the latest data from the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), there were 1.3 deaths per 100,000 women in Mexico in 2023, Reuters reported.

Less than 48 hours before Ms. Marquez's murder, Yesenia Lara Gutiérrez, a mayor candidate for Morena (the government party) in the city of Texistepec, Veracruz, was killed during participation in a political automobile. Like the case of the influencer, the murder of the politician was recorded by cameras because the event on Facebook was striked live.